“Empathizing the Gamer: Let’s Play, And You Can Too” – Scott

In “Empathizing the Gamer: Let’s Play, And You Can Too,” Solon Scott argues that “Let’s Plays are more than just a way to market games and manipulate Youtube algorithms, they are an expressive, new media form focused on exploring play in new and exciting ways.” Beyond their potential as a new explorative publishing medium, however, Scott also notes that Let’s Plays are “culturally driving how we explore play in an empathetic and performative way that helps us better understand how we engage with games.”

Scott also outlines two ways in which audiences have become attached to the Let’s Play medium: 1) Let’s Plays turn the act of play into performance 2) the public nature of this performative play encourages audience empathy with the player/performer (the viewer feels the similar sentiments of success and familiar alongside that of the player/performer).